


where the sidewalk ends

by andibeth82



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Brother Feels, Deaf Clint Barton, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 08:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3374057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I’ve survived a lot of things but I’ll probably survive this."</i> -- J.D. Salinger  </p><p>The origin story of Clint Francis Barton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the sidewalk ends

**Author's Note:**

> As a general note, this story contains a heavy amount of trigger warnings in varying degrees of intensity that may have different implications for different people, including references to domestic abuse, past child abuse, brief mentions of suicidal thoughts, and self-harm. 
> 
> Thank you to **geckoholic** for excessive hand holding, for beta, and for double-triple checking characterization and making sure my timeline made sense. To **fidesangelus** for the magical brilliance of title help when I couldn't settle on something that worked. And to **bobsessive** , my beta and cheerleader always, no matter what I’m writing about.
> 
>  _We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and watch where the chalk-white arrows go, to the place where the sidewalk ends._ \- Shel Silverstein

It smells like flowers.

That’s what Clint will remember from his childhood, that’s what he’ll take away from the memories he pulls from a brain that feels muddy with things he wants to forget and things he can’t forget: that it always smells like flowers, especially after a night of yelling and swearing and screaming and hitting. It particularly smells like flowers then, a sweet and floral scent that covers up the stench of something much more unpleasant, a coppery red tinge on the carpet that his mom cleans up at least once a week while assuring him it’s nothing more than an accidental spill of grape juice.

And Clint’s just a kid then, so when he thinks about it later, he supposes that’s why he misses the dark red marks on his mom’s face and the purple splotches on her hands.

There is a place and a time to remember it -- all of it -- but sometimes, he can’t reconcile where it all began or how it all ended.

 

***

 

Clint’s first real memory of Harold Barton comes when he’s almost four years old, sitting in the corner of the living room, lazily shoving a matchbox car across the floor in small spurts of energy.

The toy leaves rug burns in the grey carpet, and Clint peppers the movements with his own _zoom zooms_ , a whispered chant that he keeps up in repetition, mostly to avoid overhearing the conversation happening in the next room, the one that he can’t seem to make himself tune out.

“Goddamn Edith…the _mailman_?”

“He was lying, Harold, can’t you see that?”

“So I’m not good enough for you? Is that it? What the fuck’s wrong with me, then?”

(And Clint zooms his car along the floor a little faster, a little louder, his own hums drowned out in the volume of his father’s yell.)

“ _Nothing_ , I swear. I told you, none of this is true. Why would I do this to you? Why would I do this to my sons?”

“ _I don’t know_ ,” and now there’s full yelling, and it’s harder to ignore. “Maybe he has a bigger dick than me. Is that it, Edith? Do you like men with bigger dicks?”

“Harold, please…”

The crash that follows sounds like thunder, even in the midst of already-loud shouts, and Clint abandons his toy in favor of shoving his hands over his ears as he edges back towards the couch. Through eyes that have narrowed to small slits, he sees his mother hunched onto the floor, curled into herself as if she’s sleeping the way Clint does during nursery school nap times.

“What’re you looking at?” Harold growls when he stops in front of his son, his breath more of a slur than actual words. Clint feels his bottom lip start to move as Harold continues to stare at him; later he’ll realize it’s the first time he truly learns what the meaning of _disgust_ is.

“Get your filthy presence out of my sight,” his father mutters, reaching down and roughly shoving Clint out of his path. The tears come before he registers the pain, the shock of being moved so crudely, and he forces himself to lie still until he hears the stomping footsteps grow quieter, his father retreating up the stairs of the small split-level house.

 

***

 

There aren’t many gifts for Christmas, because money is tight and because the bedroom needs new furniture, but there’s a new race-car, a toy from his mom that he remembers saying he had wanted, and there’s a pair of fuzzy socks from his brother. There’s nothing from his dad because of course there isn’t, but Clint has learned to expect as much, is honestly surprised that his dad is even there to see any presents being opened at all.

Later that night, their parents will yell, and Clint and Barney will hide under the tree, huddled together against each other. They’ll stare up at the multicolored lights and Barney will tell Clint stories about how each one represents a different wish, and he’ll tell Clint to wish for as many things as he wants. (And Clint does, but he never gets what he wants, so he always feels a little silly.) Even later, upstairs in the safety of their bedroom, Barney will give Clint a second gift – a thick paperback of _The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe_.

“I know you can’t read much yet,” Barney says, taking the book out from under his mattress and shoving it into his brother’s hands. “But you’re learning. This is one of my favorites, I think you’ll like it.”

Clint looks down at the front cover and large letters that he’s just beginning to understand before looking back up, hugging the book to his chest.

“Wh’s it about?”

“The book?” Barney smiles. “Kids like us who find a magical world behind an old wardrobe. They become princes and kings and queens, and there are talking lions and really cool witches.”

“Oh.” _I wish I could go there_ , Clint thinks as he turns away to put the book by his pillow, and Barney ruffles his brother’s hair with one hand.

 

***

 

Barney is protective of his brother.

Clint learns this when Barney gets kicked out of school for a week, suspended on account of the black eye he gave the bully who was picking on Clint while he played on the monkey bars, and his dad yells about it for at least a half an hour the night that it happens.

But Barney’s there, and sometimes he’s a little brash and sometimes he’s a little too overprotective but he’s always _there_ , which is more than Clint can say for his father and even his mother, who often takes to leaving the house for long periods of time, particularly when his father decides he _wants_ to be around.

He’s home from school a few weeks later, recovering from a lingering bout of flu, stretched out under the covers of his bed trying to read Barney’s book. The crash and then the cry from across the hall doesn’t jar him as much as he expects, because it’s what he normally hears during the day, but for some reason, instinct nudges him to pad quietly out of his room after hearing the tires squeal in the driveway.

The door to his parents’ bedroom is slightly ajar and Clint hesitates at the frame, unsure whether or not he should go any further, before he reminds himself that his father isn’t here -- at least, not in this moment.

“Clint?”

He pushes in the door a little further; his mother’s voice sounds strained and slightly rough and her face is bruised and worn, but he notices that it softens at the sight of him.

“Come here, Clint,” she says a little tiredly, and he walks slowly towards the bed, climbing on top of the covers and curling into her stomach.

“You know I love you, right?”

Clint nods, because he does. “Yes.”

“And you know your dad loves you, too?”

That one’s harder to answer but Clint knows what he _should_ say, even if he has to lie about it. “Yes,” he says a little more hesitantly. Edith sighs.

“I know you’re wondering why I stay with him,” she continues quietly, wrapping one of her arms around him while brushing a hand over what he knows is his unruly hair. “I still love him, you know. He does bad things, sometimes. Hurtful things. I don’t like those things, and I don’t like him then…but when he’s nice, he’s still the guy I married. I don’t want to forgive him for hurting me, but I do.”

“Like I forgive Barney for hurting me when we fight?” Clint asks slowly, and Edith smiles in a way that looks like it hurts.

“A little like that,” she says, hugging him closer. Clint closes his eyes, still feeling nauseous from the fever that’s only broken a few hours ago.

“Okay.”

He’s realized that it’s easier to agree to things than to ask questions, to not be afraid of his father when his mom is holding him, and so he lets himself stay pressed into her side even though he can feel the way her body is tensed, as if even she anticipates the lull not lasting. Edith leans down and kisses the top of his head.

“Love is for children, Clint. When you’re older, you’ll understand.”

 

***

 

Barney’s been working since he could almost walk, that is to say, Clint doesn’t think he can remember a time when his brother _wasn’t_ working at least a few hours every day after school. So when his father drunkenly mumbles one day that he has to man up and “start pulling some sorry weight around here,” Clint doesn’t bother to protest, just lets Barney drill him on how to sort packages that come in during the day and when to take lunch breaks, _just stay out of dad’s way, and you’ll be fine_.

He’s supposed to be at work by ten on his first day and it’s his own fault he’s late, because he’s overslept and slow to start moving. When he finally does leave the house, he walks as fast as he can, pushing through fifteen-degree cold that feels like it’s going straight through his threadbare coat. Still, it’s almost fifteen after the hour when he makes it to the small butcher store on edge of the Waverly town line.

“You’re late.”

“I know.” Clint closes the door behind him, taking off his coat in the process. Both his hands and his arms feel like ice, and he debates going to the heater in the corner to warm them up, though he knows he has to get through this confrontation first, before he can allow himself any kind of potential comfort.

“I overslept…my alarm didn’t go off.” He pauses, scuffing his foot against the floor. “I’m really sorry.”

Harold gets up from where he’s been sitting and stops a few paces away, looking down his nose as if he needs to get a better look at the son he’s spent years raising underneath his own roof. He’s taller, and he’s bigger, but even in their distanced state Clint still smells the liquor on his breath, the musty remnants of alcohol coating the words that spit themselves from his mouth.

“Put the goddamn meat away,” his father says before backhanding him hard across the face, and the force of the action sends Clint sprawling backwards onto the dirty floor. As he picks himself up, he thinks about letting his vulnerability show – a cry wouldn’t do him half bad, and he probably wouldn’t even mind if it earned him another hit in the process.

But he’s smarter, and he knows better. And so he gathers his things and heads to the back of the shop, where he spends the rest of the day in the meat locker, sneaking ice from the freezer to numb his face when no one’s looking. He stays well past closing until he feels like he can leave without his father watching, to make sure he’s not skipping out before he’s allowed.

 

***

 

It’s almost midnight when Clint finally makes it home, slipping through the back door and finding the house quiet. In his younger state, quiet houses used to unnerve him, used to make him think of monsters under the bed and shadows that looked more demonic than friendly. As a child, Clint had preferred what most children prefer: a house full of noise and conversation –- at least, until his father got angry, and then Clint quickly learned that a quiet house was rather nice because a quiet house meant that his dad was either away or passed out, and it also meant that Clint didn’t have to deal with him as long as he could get to the safety of his room.

He climbs the stairs slowly, catching the sliver of light underneath the doorway that he knows means Barney’s still up. For a brief moment, he debates whether or not to spend the night in the basement, but it’s already late and he doesn’t really have the energy to hide himself.

“Hey, I was wondering -–” Barney’s words drop off when he glances up from his book, finally noticing Clint’s face and the way he’s practically limping to his bed. It takes less than a second before he’s out from under the covers, helping his brother to the other side of the shared room.

“Christ,” he mutters, squinting at Clint’s face as he sits with him on the mattress. “You okay, Clint?”

“Yeah,” Clint lies, shifting uncomfortably against what he figures is probably a bruised tailbone. “Fine.”

“What the fuck happened?”

“What do you _think_ happened?” Clint retorts, getting clumsily to his feet. Barney frowns, grabbing for his brother’s arm.

“Dad?”

Clint doesn’t answer, shrugging off his grip and continuing to walk to the closet, where he pulls out a pair of raggedy looking pajamas. He feels Barney’s eyes on him from across the room, and when he turns back, he notices that his brother hasn’t moved.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Clint sighs, shaking his head and knowing the conversation won’t stop until he admits it. “No,” he says, rubbing at his face. “But the good news is that he didn’t hit as hard as usual this time, so it’s just a bruise instead of a sprain.” Clint makes his way back to the bed, pulling back the covers and positioning himself on the mattress as comfortably as he can, given the way his body is hurting.

“You can’t keep letting him do this to you,” Barney says after a long pause, his voice hardening as he returns to his own bed, almost as if he can sense that Clint needs and wants space. “You gotta fight back.”

Clint makes a face. “How?” He holds up small fists, before dropping his palms onto the covers. “Dad’s too big. I’ll die for real if I try to fight him.”

“Then you have to go away,” Barney continues firmly, like he’s telling him the words for the first time and not the tenth. “Run off, get the hell out of here.”

“And go where?” Clint asks miserably, and the silence confirms what he already knows. “There’s no place to run. I wouldn’t get far on my own, anyway. We don’t even have any family outside of Iowa that could take me –- us –- in.”

Barney breathes heavily in the dark. “You can’t stay here,” he says finally, as if he doesn’t know what else to say but knows that he needs to say _something_. “Not when he’s like this.”

Clint nods, because he’s known that for the past few years, but the problem is there’s _nowhere to go_. He hears Barney sigh again and turn over on his stomach.

“Hey, look. Maybe a few hours a day, after school, I can teach you some stuff. Simple things. Just so you can defend yourself.” He pauses. “Make everything something to fight with, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Clint says quietly as he closes his eyes against a fresh wave of pain he can’t control. “Yeah, okay.”

He eventually hears Barney’s breathing even out, indicating signs of sleep, but Clint knows better. Clint doesn’t really sleep, either, because you don’t sleep when you know you live with someone who could burst into your room at any moment and throw you against the door for no reason.

Clint shifts so that he can see the window, the bright sparkling stars of the Midwest’s version of a winter night, and concentrates on the only sign of life he feels he can find outside of his home.

 

***

 

An infection is what they tell him, though he knows given the wound on his head and given the fact that his arm is in a sling, the doctors probably aren’t telling him the whole truth.

 _Sensorineural hearing loss, likely brought on by sustained head trauma and exposure to excessive noise. Damage to the inner ear, possible permanent hearing loss. Recommendations include an attempt at surgical reconstruction, if the family permits._ Clint catches the last few lines being written on the report, knowing that there’s no chance of his parents agreeing to any kind of forced hospital stay, certainly not with their lack of money.

“Don’t do that,” Barney says as Clint absently touches the thick head wrap, and Clint can’t hear a damn thing but he does catch the stern look on his brother’s face as he stares from the chair opposite where Clint’s sitting. He nods, thanking the fact his parents have become more or less oblivious to the communication they’ve mastered in public places when they feel they can’t speak freely.

They ride home from the hospital in silence, his mother and father sitting stonily in the front seat and staring straight ahead at the traffic lights, Barney sitting beside him and holding out a hand, and when Clint refuses to take it, he grabs the palm of his good arm and squeezes hard.

The blood on the kitchen floor is just another reminder of everything Clint wants to just forget, and as Edith walks upstairs and Harold heads to the kitchen, he finds himself thinking that the silence might not be so bad after all. At least now he didn’t have to hear the screaming and yelling, which meant that he could pretend it didn’t exist. And he could get off school for a few days, probably, have his homework taken care of.

He walks up to his room and stops in the doorway, staring blankly at the space between the two beds, unfocused pupils lending themselves to swimming vision until his brother steps in front of his face.

“I’ll make him pay,” Barney says, or at least that’s what Clint thinks he says, he’s speaking too fast but his facial expressions all but spell out what he loses in watching Barney’s lips.

“Don’t,” Clint says, testing out his voice for the first time since leaving the hospital, and it sounds too loud and hollow when he can’t hear anything else. He doesn’t think he can handle more violence after what he’s already endured, even if he’s not the one on the other end of it. “Please don’t.”

“I wanna hurt him,” Barney says before continuing and his mouth is moving more rapidly than Clint’s newfound skills can keep up with, but he thinks he manages to catch some curse words, as well as things that look like _never again_ , and _asshole of a person_ , and _hate everything here_.

Clint turns around as his brother continues to furiously scream, trying to ignore the fear that Barney’s going to yell so loud that he’ll have their dad marching up the stairs for another round of anger-fueled yelling. He lets himself zone out until he catches sight of the paper being waved under his nose.

_I’ll still teach you to fight._

Clint nods, shoving the note away, but Barney seems to sense his brother’s mood and grabs his hands, spinning him back around.

 _Listen to me_ , Barney mouths, and Clint forces himself to focus on his lips, his eyes stinging with tears. _You listen to me, Clint._ _I promise, you can get it back._

_You can get it all back._

 

***

 

Clint remembers flowers.

There are flowers on his teacher’s desk that he likes to look at, when he gets bored during his lessons and can’t keep his concentration. There are flowers on the table of the hospital room when he wakes up with his leg in a cast and Barney at his side, new hearing aids attached to his ears and his parents nowhere to be found, an unfamiliar woman in a business suit leaning over him instead. There are flowers at the funeral, and people ask Clint if he’s okay, why he’s not crying, but no one understands that this is all just _normal_.

Everything is just fucking normal.

 

***

 

“…and when you’re done, you can bring your dishes here. We usually make our chore list every Monday, and you’ll switch off with the six other boys on your floor, so that way…Mr. Barton.” The woman with the upturned nose and long brown hair frowns, tilting her head slightly. “Mr. Barton, are you listening?”

Clint nods slowly, shoving his face into what he hopes passes as some sign of interest, and the woman taps her clipboard against her wide chest.

“As I was saying -- you and your brother will be sleeping here.” She motions to the small twin-sized mattress supported by a wire-frame bed. “And dinner is at seven every night. I’ll let you get acquainted with your surroundings.”

Clint moves to sit down, dropping his duffel bag on the floor while Barney follows from a distance.

“You took your aids out, didn’t you?” his brother finally asks when he stops in front of Clint, moving his lips slowly.

“Maybe,” Clint says nonchalantly, fishing a small object out of his pocket and shoving it inside his right ear. “She was talking too much. I didn’t really care.”

Barney rolls his eyes, turning away. “I know you don’t _care_ , Clint. Hell, I don’t want to be here, either. But we don’t have a choice right now. Until we find something better, we gotta wait it out.” He lets out a long sigh. “At least they kept us together, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Clint agrees, swinging his legs back and forth. “For now.” He presses his palms into the bed, somehow feeling a lot younger than his twelve years.

“Hey,” Barney sits down next to him, as if reading his mind. “Look...dad’s gone, okay? Mom’s gone too, and it sucks…but dad’s gone, and he can’t hurt us anymore. We can start over. And once I figure out how to do that, we’re gonna get out of here. I promise.”

“Promise?” Clint looks up, and his brother grins.

 _Have I ever been wrong?_ he signs and Clint shakes his head.

_Not yet._

 

***

 

They’ve been at the orphanage for almost a month when Barney waltzes into the room one day during chores, practically pushing the other boys out of the way and dragging Clint up by his hands.

“Ow, what?!” Clint asks grumpily as he drops his dirty washcloth, and Barney shoves him into the corner, looking frenzied.

“This!” Barney hisses, his eyes darting around as if he needs to make sure no one else can see them. He’s holding a thin flyer that he waves in front of Clint’s face, and Clint grabs for it, trying to make out the words.

“The circus?”

“The circus!” Barney says, still whispering hurriedly. “The circus, Clint, we’re gonna go to the circus!”

“Tonight?” Clint feels confused. “But we’re not supposed to leave here after dark. How are we going to go to the circus?”

Barney shakes his head, as if he can’t understand why Clint can’t grasp the obvious trajectory of the conversation, and pulls his brother back towards the bed.

“Met a man today when I was outside getting the mail,” he continues, shoving him on the mattress. “He runs a circus downtown, right? Big acts, the whole thing. An’ I told him we were looking to get away from here, and he said he would take us in, he would take us in right now, if we left tonight!”

“So we’re running away?” Clint asks a little uncertainly, and Barney looks exasperated.

“No, silly. We’re moving on. That’s what we do. Anyway, they have food and water and places to sleep, and they’re going to make us stars. We’ll be rich, even! Don’t you want to be a star?”

“I guess,” Clint says, although he’s not sure what he wants, because he’s never known what he’s wanted out of his life, aside from being able to sleep without the possibility of getting hurt. “But we’ll have a family, too?”

“Sure,” says Barney a little flippantly. “We’ll live together, travel together. That’s family, right?”

Clint nods. He still feels unsure about the whole thing, but he thinks that as long as Barney’s there with him, then maybe it’ll be okay.

 

***

 

Their friend, Barney’s friend, is a portly man with a wide-brimmed cap, and Carson’s Carnival of Traveling Wonders is, in a sense, unlike any circus that Clint has ever seen.

He’s only been to the circus a few times in his past, but he clearly remembers the colors and the lights and the things that he had only before seen on television: animals and clowns, cotton candy and fire breathers. Carson’s isn’t as much lights and colors as it is dark and drab, though, and people seem to shy away from each other, keeping to themselves or their trailers even more than Clint saw at the orphanage.

“Your brother tells me you’re a fast learner,” the man says as he puts both boys on the bench in his tent. Clint shrugs and Barney kicks him in the knees.

“He is. He learned to fight and read in less than a month. He’s real smart, picks things up well,” Barney says with a boast of confidence and Clint forces a smile when their friend turns his stern gaze towards them.

“I could use some boys around here, to help me out,” he says slowly. “And the fact that you came willingly says a lot.” He eyes them once more, throwing his hands forward. “You’ll start tomorrow morning, we’ll get you training and we’ll get you some chores. Welcome to the circus, kids.”

Clint knows it’s probably a bad idea, even as he signs his name on the form, but he does it anyway, mostly because Barney’s right behind him and he had signed _his_ form earlier without any additional thought -- and Clint thinks if he trusts anything, it’s his brother, the person who saved him from his dad and got him out of the orphanage and taught him how to fight. He scrawls his name across the thin black line as well as he can and then is led into another trailer, where he’s given food and drink and a change of clothes.

Clint shovels small pieces of bread into his mouth and avoids the soda that Barney grabs for, and afterwards, they’re left to their own devices. That night, Barney’s friend treats them both to front row seats at the circus and Clint holds his brother’s hand as tightrope walkers shake dangerously above their heads, while barely-clothed girls in satin costumes dance through hoops of flames.

“One day, boys, that’ll all be you.”

And maybe it’s the thrill and the dizzying lights painting holograms on the tent walls, but Clint thinks he can almost believe it.

 

***

 

They travel a lot, to places like Chicago and Minnesota and New Jersey, and eventually end up in New York. Clint doesn’t see much of the cities they land in, given that most of the time he’s stuck doing work at the bidding of other performers, but figures it’s probably better -- he’s never been out of Iowa before and wouldn’t know what to do with himself in any type of big city. They stay in Brooklyn for longer than their normal few days and sometimes Clint thinks about running off; the few things he _does_ hear about Manhattan are tempting and the skyline is tantalizing, it’s nothing like the open, dull sky of the Midwest but rather bright and promising, filled with what Clint thinks have to be dreams and opportunities.

He’s been at the circus for almost a month altogether when he finds himself getting bored, frustrated by the seemingly mindless chores and frequent brush-offs every time he tries to scrounge up enough courage to approach anyone. It occurs to him as he heads back to his trailer that he’s never been good at just _waiting_ , being somewhere without having a purpose, or at least a promise of something on the horizon.

“I’m bored,” he announces, sitting on Barney’s bed after finishing his sweep of one of the circus rings. “I thought we were supposed to be doing stuff.”

“We are,” Barney says a little shortly. “I’m learning how to twirl hoops. See?” He flicks his wrist a few times and the large silver ring spins in the air before Barney catches it deftly with one hand. Clint leans on one arm, toying with his hearing aid, knowing that aside from being bigger and taller and older, there were certain things that Barney surpassed him in, like reflexes and balance.

“I don’t think I’d be good at that,” he says, but Barney doesn’t seem to be paying attention, concentrating on another toss with his tongue firmly stuck into the side of his cheek. Clint sighs and pushes off the bed, wandering out the door and around the larger trailers before he decides to flop down in one of the over-sized abandoned chairs that the performers usually keep for their lunch breaks.

“Hey, kid.”

Clint startles, breathing hard as a hand claps down on his shoulder, shaken by the strange voice and even stranger touch. It reminds him too much of his father, of a palm coming up to blindside him in the middle of the night, and he forces his anxiety back into the pit of his stomach as he turns, meeting a man who, despite his towering stature, is certainly not Harold Barton.

“Whatcha doin’ kid?”

“I, uh…” Clint jumps up on shaky legs and rubs the back of his neck, nodding towards his trailer. “Just taking a break. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to steal your chair.”

The man stares at him for a good long time, before breaking into a grin. “Nah, kid, you’re good. No worries.” He takes Clint’s vacated seat, extending a hand as he leans back. “What’s your name?”

“Clint,” he says quietly. “Clint Barton. Me and my brother Barney live there,” he says, jerking his hand backwards.

“Clint.” The man pauses. “They call me the Swordsman. Good to meet you.”

“Yeah,” Clint says because he’s not really sure what to say, and the Swordsman smiles again, almost as if he can sense Clint’s hesitancy.

“What’s your skill, kid?”

“Um.” Clint bites down on his lip and thinks of Barney effortlessly flipping his silver rings with a smug smile. The Swordsman raises an eyebrow and looks down, and Clint curls in his fingers when he notices that his gaze has flitted towards his hands.

“Ever used a bow and arrow before?”

Clint’s head snaps up and he shakes his head mutely, while the Swordsman’s grin grows bigger.

“Come with me, kid. I got something to show you.”

 

***

 

Clint’s first attempt at archery is a disastrous experiment gone wrong.

He hasn’t done much in the way of strength training and that fact, coupled with a shoulder that still smarts at moments from its dislocation, makes him unable to handle the bow that the Swordsman gives him. He struggles with its weight until the man takes pity on him and gives him one with a slightly smaller draw.

After that, his first few shots barely make it past his shoes; he’s thrown off by the equilibrium from his hearing loss, so much so that it almost makes him sick. The Swordsman looks a little put out by Clint’s lack of initial skill, he notices, but a few pointers on form help him improve enough so that he can at least shoot in a straight line, even if the arrows don’t go very far.

“ _Practice_ ,” says the Swordsman, whose name Clint learns is Duquesne, and in lieu of not having much else to keep him occupied, Clint practices. He practices every day after his chores and every night after they clean up, he practices while Barney twirls his hoops and eventually, he’s shooting well enough to warrant permission to perform a few pre-shows in the ring.

“I’m gonna be just like you,” he tells Duquesne one day as he makes a bullseye, boosted by a surge of confidence that teeters on the brink of something that actually feels real, and the man laughs a little bitterly in response.

“Son, you’re _never_ gonna be just like me. Worth a good try, though.”

He’s fifteen when he finally gets to be part of an act, a featured player in the segments that include members of the aerobatic team. He perches on the thin bar of the trapeze with his bow and shoots arrows from well above seven feet, neatly knocking apples off the heads of the performers who are running rampant below with plates strapped to their heads. It would unnerve someone else, he thinks, the low murmurings he can see being whispered in the audience, the wide-eyed fear masquerading as curiosity. Every shot hits its mark with finality and confidence, and the crowd screams its approval with flashes and whooping cheers.

There’s a lot of clapping, and there are lights brighter than Clint has ever seen, and for the first time in his entire life, Clint feels like he’s finally done something worthy of living.

 

***

 

He doesn’t remember when Barney starts leaving or disappearing, and can’t catalog a certain time frame when things start to shift. When Barney’s out late are the times that Clint sneaks out of his trailer with a stolen packet of cigarettes and half a bottle of alcohol, climbing onto the roof, breathing clouds of smoke into the damp sky and counting the stars until he can’t anymore. He’s always in bed by the time his brother returns and never tells him that he knows he’s sneaking off, even when Barney manages to procure random goods out of nowhere, things like food and money and socks. It’s the old adage of _don’t ask, don’t tell_ , his mom’s actions and his father’s brutal nature, and so Clint keeps to himself as much as he can. He knows Barney would never get angry, that he would never _really_ hurt him, but it’s not enough to let the anxious feelings subside.

It’s two in the morning in the middle of March (they've left and come back and left and come back to Brooklyn again, since the crowds are bigger here than anywhere else, he's learned) when Clint slides down the side of the trailer, landing soundlessly on the grass in the neat tumble he’s been practicing during his lessons, and Barney’s been gone since at least seven. That fact unnerves Clint more than he wants to admit, because even if he sneaks out early, he’s usually back well before dinner.

 _“Don’t worry about me, baby bro. I can take care of my futzing self,”_ is what Barney tells him whenever he returns, before leaving again when he thinks Clint’s asleep. But Clint worries anyway, because Barney’s his brother, and Clint knows he doesn’t _have_ anyone else.

There’s movement in the shadows by one of the other trailers and he turns around, expecting to see his brother’s face, ready to chew him out for disappearing for so long. His words die in his throat, however, when instead it’s the familiar gait of Duquesne that he sees, striding alone through the circus grounds.

Clint isn’t sure what propels him to follow, and keeps a safe distance as he makes his way across the grass, dirt and mud soaking his bare feet, the cold cutting through his thin clothing and reminding him of why he usually slept with at least three blankets and Barney’s pathetic space heater. Clint stops just outside of what he recognizes as the tent he’d been taken into when he first arrived, lingering on the fringes, lifting the curtain slowly. He can see Duquesne more clearly now, rifling through a few pieces of paper and stuffing what looks like rolls of bills into one pocket, and Clint’s eyes widen as the man suddenly turns on his heel. He drops the curtain like he’s just touched fire, pressing himself against the tree next to the tent, barely breathing as the footsteps inside become closer and then stop in front of him.

“What are you doing?”

“No…nothing,” Clint stammers, fear rising in the back of his throat as the man advances. He feels the rough bark cut daggers into his back, but resists the urge to cry out.

“I asked you what you were doing,” Duquesne says roughly, grabbing Clint by the neck and tossing him to the ground. He lands hard on his spine and bites down on his lip as pain explodes through his body; behind tightly closed lids he sees the unmistakable snarl of his father’s face.

“Nothing, I swear. I…I was just curious,” Clint says as truthfully as he can manage, fighting through the agony in his bones and opening his eyes. Duquesne steps forward and gives Clint another backhand against the face, this one a little harder and more firm, before raising him up by the shoulder.

“You tell anyone what you saw, you’re dead,” he whispers menacingly as he punches him, a fist near his eye, and Clint feels first blinding discomfort and then something wet along his face.

“You said you would help me,” Clint mumbles, realizing he can’t hear anything but silence, realizing too late that his aids must have been knocked out in the latest assault. Duquesne curls his lip as he drops Clint to the ground again and although he’s got no sound to latch onto, he makes out enough of what the other man is saying to understand.

 _You think you’re anything more than worthless? You’re just another roach under my shoe. I don’t help pathetic boys who tattle on me_.

Duquesne kicks out with one foot, making contact with the space just under his ribs. He feels the something that sounds like a branch being snapped in half and fights for air as another foot connects with his stomach, sending him spiraling into a world of agony. It’s difficult to breathe and easier at that point to let himself fall into the darkness that he feels pressing in around him, and the last thing he fully remembers is being dumped on his back into something wet and foul smelling.

It’s dawn when Clint finally regains consciousness, and he’s alone, and the circus is gone.

 

***

 

He knows he should get help – that much he knows, but even as his bones and his head scream, he realizes getting help is the last thing he wants. _You’re a stupid son of a bitch_ , he hears Barney say in his head, and Barney -- _Barney -_ \- Barney was gone, and no one was going to tell him anything like that right now, and he certainly wasn’t going to listen to his own mind.

Clint rolls over in the mud and manages to make it to his knees before he puts his head down again against waves of nausea; it’s a painstakingly slow process to get anywhere near feeling like he can stand, even with help of the tree conveniently positioned near where Duquesne had decided to throw him out to the trash.

 _The trash_. Clint Barton, thrown to the curb like a pile of garbage for the second time in his life, and he thinks he’d laugh if he knew it wouldn’t hurt so much.

He knows next to nothing about wounds except for what he’s seen when he’s helped patch up other performers, so he tries to remember what he’s seen as a child as he goes through his own injuries, mostly in an attempt to keep himself conscious. Concussion, sprained wrist, broken rib, maybe. Pain in his head. Pain in his back. Pain in his lungs. Pain all fucking over, and not a damn thing he can do about it.

As he stumbles slowly away from the mud, he realizes there’s only one place that he knows can provide any kind of shelter right now, and one that will also let him sit and rest without any kind of disturbance. It takes him longer than it should to reach the subway stop that he knows is only a few blocks away but once he’s there, Clint manages to sneak under the turnstile fairly easily, boarding the first train that comes. He curls up in a seat near the back of the car, willing himself not to throw up all over the only clothes he knows he has and doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he’s shaken awake roughly, it causes him to recoil in fear.

“Hey, kid.”

He stares at the man, trying to make out the words on his lips, until his father’s face fades into the hard stare of a uniformed police officer.

 _Come on, kid_. _Last stop. Everyone’s gotta go._

The officer motions towards the platform, which Clint notices reads _Ditmars Blvd_ , and he slowly removes himself from the seat, limping towards the door while desperately hoping that he won’t get stopped. He thinks at this point, he’s had enough help to last him a lifetime, that he would go so far as to spit in someone’s face if they asked.

When he makes it out of the station, he’s met with the broken down sign of a 24-hour convenience store, one that despite its dilapidated atmosphere looks safe enough. Clint stretches out as much as he can on the sidewalk next to the entrance, the dried blood on his face making it hard to relax. He pulls his arm tighter around his body, being careful of what he suspects are probably the bruises lining his ribs, the ones that hurt every time he tries to breathe, leaving him dizzy from lack of oxygen.

His last thought before he falls back into unconsciousness is that he wishes Barney were here, because Barney always kept him safe, even when Clint knew that his brother couldn’t really do anything to help him.

 

***

 

It takes him awhile to place where he is when he wakes up –- he’s not on the street but he’s not in the orphanage, he’s not at the circus but he’s not at home. What he _can_ place is that he’s stretched out on a wide bed in a room that he doesn’t recognize, a bright and airy space with the soundtrack of what he comes to realize is medical equipment. His mouth feels dry and it hurts to move his head, but when he moves his arm he can feel the sharp sting of the IV needle, and he tries not to panic as his senses come back to him. Hospitals always freaked him out. He was never a fan of being in places where you could be held against your will, somewhere you could be poked and prodded and played with while you were otherwise vulnerable.

“Clint Barton,” says a low voice from the corner and then there’s a figure in front of him, a scowl appearing on a dark-skinned face riddled with stubble, one eye glaring down at his form.

“Who’r you?”

The man smiles grimly. “Nicholas J. Fury, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics. You may know us better as SHIELD,” he adds after a beat, handing Clint a card that he squints at through the slit of one swollen eye. There’s a faded emblem of an eagle spreading across Fury’s name, which is stamped into the heavy cardstock.

“Never heard of you. And not interested,” Clint says finally, dropping the card on his blanket and turning his head. He hears a long, dramatically-laden sigh from the other side of the bed.

“Not interested, or you don’t care?”

“Both,” Clint says curtly, choking on the words as he tries to push them painfully from his throat. The man apparently known as Fury clicks his tongue.

“I can’t imagine this is the life you would want for yourself.”

“My life? What the _fuck_ do you know about my life?” Clint spits out as his ribs scream in protest, and he’s tired and he’s hurting and he’s frustrated, and he’s slowly realizing even though he has no one else now, he certainly doesn’t want the pity of this man who he’s assuming has found him and taken him in against his will. It’s a violation that makes him feel angry, and it makes him want to scream.

Fury looks more than a little amused but simply shrugs in the wake of his outburst. “A lot more than you think, Mr. Barton. But that’s not important. You clearly don’t want anything we can offer.”

Clint continues stews silently; he feels trapped, like he’s being goaded into some response where he’s expected to break down, but he refuses to give anyone that satisfaction -- least of all a strange man he doesn’t know.

“Go the fuck away.”

Fury raises one eyebrow and stares at Clint for a few moments longer before he finally retreats, pausing at the door.

“You should know that SHIELD has already taken care of your medical bills, so you can feel free to leave whenever you want,” he says, nodding to Clint. “Though, I'd recommend not trying to climb out of bed until your ribs are set, given how bad of a shape you were in when we found you. There’s medication in the form of antibiotics waiting for you at the nurses desk. And those are new hearing aids,” he adds, gesturing towards Clint’s head. “We had them fitted after we brought you in. I’m no doctor, but I’ll venture to say they’re probably a little more advanced than the ones you were using before.”

He’s been so engrossed in his own confusion and pain that he hasn’t even realized his ability to hear or talk, and as the meaning behind Fury’s words hit him, he struggles to find a response, fighting through the drug-induced haze that’s starting to take over his body.

“Why?”

Fury gazes at him with one eye. “You can’t pay for any of this on your own, can you?”

“No, I mean…” Clint swallows. “Why are you doing this? I don’t even know you. I don’t _want_ to know you.”

Fury shrugs. “Whether you want to know me or not, you have a gift, Mr. Barton. And you’re going to be important to the world.” He smiles. “You just don’t know it yet.”

 

***

 

Barney doesn’t come.

Clint doesn’t expect him to, not really, not after everything that’s happened. And the realistic part of Clint’s mind tells him that Barney wouldn’t be able to find him anyway, that it would be impossible because Barney was with the circus and so far as he could tell, Clint was probably dead by the side of that trailer like the Swordsman intended, like he probably told everyone when Clint didn’t show up for his scheduled chores. Still, it doesn’t stop the feeling of hope and then the subsequent feeling of resignation after Fury leaves, when the loneliness finally starts to settle in.

He stays in the hospital for as long as he feels he can, milking the warm bed and free meals and painkillers until the doctors gently urge him that he doesn’t need to be laid up anymore, so long as he doesn’t go out and do anything stupid. Clint almost laughs, because he feels that so far, his whole _life_ has been about trying not to do something stupid.

 _And look at how well that’s worked out_ , he thinks to himself as he puts on his coat, being careful not to exacerbate his still-healing injuries. It only occurs to him after he walks out of the hospital that in addition to not really knowing where to go, he doesn’t _have_ anywhere to go, and that as much as his bills may have been taken care of, he doesn’t have much of anything to his name.

Getting out of New York would be a good start, he thinks as he turns the corner and wanders down a few avenues, coming to the edge of a mostly deserted park that smells more like stale urine than freshly cut grass. There’s a part of him that wonders if he can just follow the circus, somehow find out where they’ve set up shop and throw himself right back into the lifestyle, because while he might be miserable there, at least he would be able to do some archery. But there’s also a part of him that never wants to see anyone associated with the place again, and there’s a pain in his side that he knows has nothing to do with his wounds when his mind settles on his brother’s face.

Near the middle of the park, he finds a trashed cardboard sign that he rips in half, fishing a stolen ballpoint pen out of his pocket. He scrawls a few words across the back, scraping large letters into the stiff brown sign, and wanders back towards the streets, swiping an empty cup from a nearby McDonalds. Placing himself against a pole, he brings his knees to his chest, trying to avoid the stares of pedestrians and the looks that border between disgusted and sympathetic.

_everyone needs a little help sometimes._

At the end of the day, he’s gotten a handful of bills, enough that he knows he could probably scrounge for at least a one-way ticket somewhere with a little more begging. He gets to his feet, catching a hazy glimpse of the skyline through some of the smaller buildings, and suddenly realizes that he doesn’t want to leave New York after all, squashing the money in his pocket before wandering off in search of someplace warm.

 

***

 

Clint refuses to admit that he’s homeless, because as far as he’s concerned, he’s _always_ been homeless. The orphanage wasn’t his home and the circus wasn’t his home, hell, even the house he grew up in wasn’t his home -- or at least, it never felt like it was. He considers that maybe the only place that ever felt like home was when he was huddling under the covers with Barney, or walking home from school and detouring to the small park with the big tree that he could hide behind, or lying under the Christmas tree in a cocoon of bright lights that seemed like an escape from the dreariness that penetrated every inch of the walls.

He finds his meals thanks to soup kitchens and cheap bites of food in dated packages sold at unpleasant-smelling bodegas, sustenance bought with whatever change he’s managed to scrounge up during a night on the street. And when he realizes, after trailing another homeless bum, that he can hide out in places like Penn Station, he makes it a habit to occupy the New Jersey Transit sector, picking the wall near the heater, which always seemed to be blasting itself even in the off hours.

He catches a glimpse of the _NY Post_ one day while rooting through the trash -- something about recruitment for a traveling circus -- and clutches the ad like it’s a piece of gold, folding it up and putting it in his pocket. It presses to his thigh like a magnet, like it realizes it has a need to be an anchor, a reminder that he once _did_ have some sort of purpose or goal in the world, and he smiles when he thinks about what Barney would say if he were watching.

_You’re a goddamn mess, hanging on to the past like that._

Well, Barney wasn’t wrong. He _was_ a mess. And so what if he hung onto the past? His future wasn’t looking much brighter.

 _today is my birthday...please make it better_ , reads the sign that he places at his feet when he sits down for the night. It’s a helpless plea, a pathetic plea, and he knows it is because when he finally struggles awake he’s got little to no cash in his cup, which makes his entire draw look meager and disappointing. _An amateur_ , Clint thinks, struggling to his feet as he dumps the change into his palm. _Happy birthday to me_.

He allows himself to feel one moment of self-pity before turning his mind off entirely, and heads to the foul smelling bathroom to wash himself up.

 

***

 

He finds his next job at a jazz bar in one of the more rundown parts of Hell's Kitchen.

It’s a seedy, tiny place, where everyone smokes and where performers sing sad, droopy-sounding songs that add to the doom and gloom of the overall atmosphere. Clint’s hired initially as service help, mostly cleaning in and around the kitchen, but one day after the place has closed up for the night he sits down randomly at the piano and ends up practically teaching himself one of the songs that he’s heard the band perform countless times, while he was busy cleaning up spills and fielding drink orders.

“Do you play?” his manager asks him when he finally finishes, and Clint looks up in confusion and surprise. Dimly, he realizes it’s probably the first time someone that wasn’t a busboy or paying customer has even bothered to speak to him.

“Not really,” he admits a little shyly. “Never touched a piano before.”

His manager frowns, looking down. “Your fingers say otherwise,” and Clint feels his gaze fixate on his hands. He flexes his joints nervously.

“Used to do some archery, if that’s what you mean,” he says, though the manager looks unconvinced.

“Play me something else.” He leans against the piano, leveling his gaze, and Clint thinks that if it was anyone else, he probably would have used the opportunity to slink away. But something compels him to sit forward and he puts his hands on the keys again, starting to play another well-known tune. He feels his fingers slip clumsily over the white bars, knows he’s making mistakes, but tries to ignore that fact in favor of concentrating on finishing the song. When he’s done, he notices his manager looking at him with a small grin.

“Well, Mr. Barton...I do believe you just got yourself a promotion.”

And so Clint fills in for the house band on more than one occasion and learns the ropes quickly, his nimble bow fingers and sharp memory giving way to some complicated tunes, and soon he’s almost more of a regular on the stage than he is in the kitchen, earning impressed looks from performers and attendees alike. There’s one patron in particular, a curly haired girl with a light Long Island drawl that shows up every night after six and positions herself right by the edge of his piano. She never takes her eyes off of him and on more than on occasion, Clint has to force himself not to stare because no one in his life has ever looked at him like that before.

The night that she finally approaches him, it’s close to one in the morning and he’s packing up, but turns when she places her hand on top of his while he reaches for the sheet music.

“What’s your name, boy?”

He meets her eyes, smoky liner obscuring blue orbs, and swallows down a lump in his throat. “Clint.”

“Clint.” She smiles. “I’m Jennifer. Come with me.”

He abandons his space at the piano and follows her backstage, into one of the unused dressing rooms, while he drags his feet behind him.

“Close the door,” Jennifer says quietly, and Clint obeys. When he turns, he’s startled to find that she’s stripped herself of most of her clothes.

“Take yours off, too,” she says thickly, and Clint undoes the belt buckle on his pants. Jennifer steps forward and starts kissing Clint deeply, taking his head in both her hands before sliding her palms down his body, tugging his pants and boxers down to his ankles. He feels the brush of her stomach against his cock as she moves closer, and a sensation unfurls itself in his gut, so much so that he finds himself kissing back without thinking about it.

“Where do you come from?” Jennifer breathes as she sucks at a spot on Clint’s neck, and he makes a noise in the back of his throat.

“Circus,” he mumbles as he wraps his arms around her more fully, and when she doesn’t respond with a scathing remark like he’s expected, he starts to feel a little more bold. “Iowa.”

“Midwest, huh?” Jennifer pulls back slightly. “Yeah, I like country boys. All tanned and horny and lost in the big city…” She grabs the sleeves of his shirt and pulls it over his head, kissing a line down his chest, and her movements are so practiced and focused that Clint’s shocked when she abruptly stops, breaking their embrace.

“What’s wrong? You don’t want me?”

“I…” Clint feels utterly confused and follows the direction of Jennifer’s stare, suddenly realizing his problem.

“No. No, I do. I do,” he repeats, as if trying to convince himself as much as his body. He tugs at his cock, aggressively massaging it with one hand and willing it to harden, feeling the last bits of his confidence slip as Jennifer’s face takes on a disappointed look.

“What kind of carnie are you that you can’t even keep it up?”

_What kind of man are you that you can’t even get me a beer?_

Clint feels his hand fall slack and he shakes his father’s voice out of his mind, his attention broken. “I swear I’m not…please,” he protests and the two slaps on his face aren’t a surprise as much as her next words are.

“Get dressed,” she says with a caustic bite, turning on her heel and slamming the door loudly. Clint sinks to the floor with his pants still pooled around his ankles, one hand pressed against his stinging cheek, feeling more vulnerable than he thinks he’s ever felt in his life.

He waits in the dark until he knows everyone has gone home, knowing no one will come looking for him. When he finally emerges into the deserted bar, he steals three bottles of gin and ends up drinking alone in a dark corner with the silence seeping into his ears as if his aids have lost their use completely.

When he throws up in the kitchen sink, he thinks the physical pain can’t hurt as much as his pride does.

 

***

 

He quits his job the next day, and even though he has a sinking feeling that Jennifer won’t be back, he finds himself unable to stomach the fact that he has to perform while knowing that she _could_ show up, and that thought makes him want to hide under a table. Clint turns in his sheet music and collects the rest of his earnings before he leaves, mentally counting the bills before shoving them into his coat. It’s enough to last him at least a week, maybe a week and a half if he’s lucky, which means for the first time in forever he can at least afford to buy himself something that isn’t a candy bar.

The coffee and bakery shop seems as good a place as any to regroup, and he secures a table in the back corner while scribbling a few options on a napkin. He stops writing when one dark-skinned hand places itself on the table in a manner that Clint vaguely recognizes, and he doesn’t bother to wonder how he’s been found, or why this is happening _now_ , like someone’s been watching, waiting for him to slip up so they can come to his rescue.

“I told you, I didn’t want your help.”

“Really.” Fury takes a seat across from Clint without bothering to ask if he can and Clint feels himself bristle with frustration. “Because it looks to me like you’re currently homeless.”

“And I was homeless before too, so what?” Clint defends, not bothering to try to correct him. “I’ll find a way through it. I always do.”

“You always do,” Fury repeats. “But in case you’d like a place to stay that doesn’t involve the streets, I thought I’d let you know that my invitation still stands.”

Clint feels like it takes far too long for him to answer, and he finally looks up when his eyes start to burn. “I don’t want any part of whatever super secret boy band you’re trying to put together,” he spits out sarcastically, and Fury’s lip twitches slightly, a sight which only infuriates him more. “I don’t know what you guys do, but apparently you spend a lot of time stalking people who you think are going to be dumb enough to fall for your recruitment tricks.”

“What’s for dinner?” Fury asks in response, and Clint flinches, trying not to think about the fact that it’s been at least twenty-four hours since he’s eaten anything, his stomach still churning from the after effects of shame and alcohol.

“I’ll figure something out. I have some cash. And I heard there’s a bargain on ninety-nine cent pizzas.”

“For how many days?” Fury asks mildly and Clint feels like it’s taking everything he has not to reach across the table and strangle the man. He shoves his hands under his thighs as Fury slides a small square across the table.

“I know you didn’t bother to keep my card,” he says lightly as he pushes his chair back. “Be careful with this one –- it has some information that might be useful.”

Clint looks away as Fury gets up and waits until he’s made his way far enough down the street to reach for the card. It’s the same one he’d been given back in the hospital, complete with the same eagle stamped across the front and the same pretentious sounding name, but he notices a line of black ink bleeding through the thin stock and turns it over curiously in his hand.

 _Morse, Barbara. 818-594-6296._ Clint makes a face.

“Who the fuck is Barbara Morse?” he mutters to himself as he crumples the card into a ball and shoves it in his pocket.

 

***

 

“Barbara Morse,” says a sharp voice on the other end of the line when Clint finally finds an available pay phone that looks like it has germs crawling all over it, and Clint opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

“Hello?” and the woman’s tone grows slightly more impatient. “Who is this?”

“This, uh…” Clint swallows. “My name is Clint Barton. I got your number from someone named Nick Fury.”

“Barton, the archer,” Morse says instantly and Clint raises his eyebrow on the other end of the phone.

“Yeah,” he says slowly, though he knows he hasn’t picked up a proper bow in years. “I guess.”

“Fury told me you might be calling,” she continues, sounding a little surprised, and Clint frowns.

“Might?”

“Well, also made it clear you weren’t really agreeable when it came to wanting to ask anyone to help you,” Morse replies casually. “But you actually did call, so I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re still in New York?”

“I, uh.” Clint falters, wondering if there might be some sort of odd tracking device on the card, or maybe on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” Morse says briskly, and it sounds like she’s moving on the other end of the line. “Meet me in Central Park, by the big statue with the fountain. I’ll be wearing a red coat.” She hangs up before Clint can respond, and he stares down at the phone receiver before hanging up slowly.

 

***

 

The park is less crowded than Clint would expect for it being the middle of the day, but then again, he figures that maybe he’s never paid attention to the crowds before, always too focused on himself in a city where everyone seemed to be preoccupied with their own lives. He sits down on the edge of the statue, drawing lazy circles on the ground with the heel of his dirty sneaker, until a shadow falls across his feet.

“Clint Barton.”

Barbara Morse is taller than he expects, and she holds herself more like a guy than a girl, or maybe that’s because she’s standing and he’s sitting, Clint realizes, leaning over in three inch black heels and looking down her glasses like he’s some sort of bug. He hauls himself to his feet a little sheepishly.

“Morse?”

“Barbara,” she says with a curt nod. “You can call me Bobbi, though, I don’t mind. Come on.” She takes him by the arm and drags him through the park while Clint struggles to keep up in a malnourished body that’s not used to walking more than a few blocks without finding a place to rest.

“Who are you?” he asks because he realizes he still has no idea, though strangely, he’s not feeling too concerned about that. If Fury, who had taken such an interest in wanting to help him, had been the instigator of this meeting, he figures it had to be for a reason. Unless Fury was someone with a secret agenda, and, well. Clint thinks of the Swordsman and his stomach clenches, and he has to stop himself from becoming sick.

“Bobbi Morse. I’m an agent with SHIELD. Yes, the thing you’re trying to run from,” she says as he blanches, “and no, I’m not going to try to secretly recruit you. Fury’s already tried that enough. You should be grateful; he normally doesn’t seek people out like this, much less more than once after they’ve dismissed him. Unless you’re some kind of genius.”

"Genius?" Clint asks, because he knows he's far from one. He rubs his forehead with a free hand as Bobbi drags him to a stop in front of a vacated bench.

“Sit down, Clint.”

He does, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do, and Bobbi follows suit, opening her bag and taking out a bottle of water. “Go slow,” she cautions before she hands it to him, and Clint nods, trying not to down the whole thing in a matter of seconds.

“Why?” he asks when he comes up for air, and Bobbi’s look drops.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Fury likes you. He seems to think you’re worth something. But you’re not going willingly. So, I’m going to help you hone your skills. That way, if you want to fuck around New York, you can at least defend yourself. And eat.”

“You’re gonna teach me how to shoot?” Clint asks a little sarcastically, and Bobbi rolls her eyes.

“No. You already know how to shoot, although you could stand to use some practice given how long it’s been,” she says as he glares. “But there are other ways to fight, and your skills are sharp enough to pick them up.”

“And I take it you’re going to help me,” Clint responds flatly, unable to keep the bite out of his voice. Bobbi sighs.

“Against your better wishes, yes. But not now.” She takes the drained water bottle from his hand. “We’ll start tomorrow. I don’t know much about your life, but I do know that you can’t train on an empty stomach.”

 

***

 

Bobbi’s apartment in the West Village is small, but it’s by far the nicest place Clint has ever seen or stayed at in his entire life. He doesn’t bother to mention that, though he figures Bobbi probably has an idea by the way he walks around, gingerly making his way around the furniture that looks too expensive to be real.

“How long have you lived here?” he asks later as he sits at the table, shoveling take out into his mouth under her watchful eye. She takes a bite of her own sandwich.

“Seven years, give or take. I lived in Los Angeles for awhile, but came back to New York recently for my job.”

“For SHIELD?” Clint asks curiously, grabbing a handful of onion rings. Bobbi nods.

“Kind of. SHIELD has offices all over the world, but I was wanted to be close to headquarters. It’s a long story.” She sits back. “You’ve been in New York all your life?”

“No,” Clint says, dragging a napkin across his mouth. “Grew up in Iowa, then my brother and I got involved with the circus, and we traveled around a little before coming here. Longest place I’ve stayed, though.”

Bobbi nods, as if she’s letting herself trust that he’s actually telling the truth. “Your brother –- he’s still around?”

Clint shakes his head slowly. “No,” he says, not wanting to say anything else, realizing he doesn’t know how else to respond. He’s never actually considered the fact that Barney might be dead. “Not really.” He falls silent and Bobbi seems to understand, using the moment to clear the plates from the table.

“You can sleep in the living room tonight,” she says as she puts the plates in the sink. “There’s an extra blanket in the closet, and if you need anything from the kitchen, feel free to help yourself. You won’t find any alcohol in there,” she adds pointedly as his eyes stray to the locked liquor cabinet. “I only collect the bottles.”

“I should thank you,” Clint mutters, though more than anything he feels frustrated, because he could use a drink.

“You can’t solve every problem by blacking out,” Bobbi says rationally as she walks to the cupboard and takes out a nearly full bottle of Grey Goose. “But if it’s that important to you, you’re welcome to try.”

Clint stares up at her as she puts the bottle in front of him, half-wondering if her words are too good to be true, especially because Bobbi strikes him as the no-nonsense bullshit kind of person who keeps people on a leash, no matter who they are. When she doesn’t continue, he starts to reach out, maintaining their eye contact.

“Just don’t try in my house,” she says curtly as she turns away to finish cleaning up and Clint wants to yell.  It’s a challenge, something he feels his brother or maybe someone in the circus would have done and he flexes his fingers, trying to talk himself out of just grabbing the thing and downing half of it in one go.

Which, he knows, would also mean being kicked back onto the street, because Clint can tell Bobbi’s not fucking around and Clint also knows that there’s nothing stopping her from following through on her words; she had taken him in by her own free will, after all. He wasn’t hers to save.

Hell, he hadn’t even asked. Someone _else_ had asked. Because someone else thought, for whatever stupid reason, that he deserved a goddamn chance. And Bobbi was just doing the bidding, whether she was really invested in it or not.

Clint swipes the vodka from the table and walks towards the kitchen archway, placing it in the recycle bin. Bobbi whips around with the intuitive speed of someone who seems to have spent her life on edge, her gaze softening and her stance dropping as she realizes what he’s doing.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, and Clint bites his lip.

“Do you trust me enough now to leave me alone?” he asks, meeting her gentleness with his own brash voice. “Or do you need to put a lock on the couch, too?”

Bobbi moves her head to one side before lifting her arms and allowing her hands to rest on her hips. “No,” she says again, her voice bordering on the same tender sound. “I trust you.”

“Ain’t that a change,” Clint mutters as he walks away, stopping in front of one of Bobbi’s small windows, which faces out over an overgrown courtyard that doesn’t seem to quite fit with the building’s otherwise prestigious decor. He’s surprised when he hears her footsteps behind him, and from the reflection in the glass, notes that she stops with just enough distance so that she can’t touch him easily.

“Why don’t you like to let people help you, Clint?” and the seemingly innocent words burn like she’s spitting fire at his back.

“Fuck off,” he mutters as a weight drops onto his chest, and he suddenly feels like he can’t breathe. The next few moments happen in what seems like slow motion, Bobbi reaching out as he tries to escape again and him seeing the movement out of his peripheral vision, reacting before he has a chance to think rationally about it and shoving her hard onto the floor. It takes at least ten seconds after that for him to realize what he’s done and when he does, his legs give out easily.

“Sorry,” he says brokenly, staring at Bobbi as she gets up. “I -- shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He backs away on his hands until he’s pressed against the couch, squeezing his eyes closed against his father’s voice, his mother’s voice, repeated apologies mingling with shouted insults and swears. The hand that comes to rest on his knee is delicate, and feels far too gentle considering his recent actions.

“It’s okay.”

Clint opens his eyes to see Bobbi’s face hovering dangerously close to his own, and he desperately tries to avert his eyes, straining his gaze towards the kitchen where he knows he’s dumped the extra liquor. Bobbi frowns.

“Clint,” she says, unmoving and stern, and he forces his attention back to her. “Okay?”

He swallows hard, feeling the anvil on his chest lift just enough for him to suck in a non-compromising breath.

“Okay.”

Bobbi gets up slowly, walking to the bedroom, returning with a pair of loose scrubs. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything more fitting,” she apologizes, but Clint doesn’t mind, because it’s the first real change of clothes he’s had in weeks. “Since this isn’t my permanent residence, I tend to only keep essentials here.”

“‘S fine,” he mutters, grabbing for the clothes, and Bobbi wisely leaves him to change in private, closing the door to the bedroom as if she’s aware that she needs to confirm that line. Maybe it’s the fact that being on edge has caused his thoughts to become unfocused, but strangely enough, Clint actually _trusts_ the fact that Bobbi won’t walk in on him while he’s stripping, and after the incident at the jazz club, Clint knows he never trusts anything.

“Are you decent?” Bobbi asks roughly after about five minutes, her voice rising from the other side of the wall, and Clint nods before he remembers she can’t see him.

“Yeah,” he says, shoving his dirty clothes into a pile as Bobbi walks back in carrying a large pillow. Clint immediately notices she’s changed into yoga pants and a loose red tank top. “Thanks.”

She nods, picking up his discarded garments. “We’ll take these to the laundromat tomorrow and get you cleaned up. For now, I’ll try to find you stuff to wear that you can get away with, as long as you’re not picky.”

He shakes his head rapidly as Bobbi turns to leave again, feeling the elephant drop back onto his ribs as if it’s been suspended from an invisible wire that’s finally snapped.

“Wait,” Clint says and in a fit of panic that dissolves almost instantly, he suddenly realizes just how much he’s going to actually appreciate sleeping on something that’s not a bench or a makeshift mattress. “Leave the light on?”

“And waste my electricity?” Bobbi asks a little bitterly, while Clint clenches his teeth together.

“Please,” he says, not bothering to mask the vulnerability in his voice. “Just…please, do you mind? Leaving the light on?” And maybe it’s the shadows or the way he speaks, but something in Bobbi’s gaze seems to soften as she takes her hand away from the switch.

“See you in the morning, Barton.”

He hears the door close to her room again and thinks of his father, of Barney, of the alcohol lying essentially within arms reach, and he tries to ignore the shadows on the wall and the creaking of the floors in the apartment above him, until he finally feels okay enough to fall asleep.

 

***

 

The first thing Bobbi shows him is how to fight. They’re standing in a small training room at a large gym down the street from Bobbi’s apartment, and even though Clint knows the door is locked and there’s no evidence of any other surveillance, he still feels overly paranoid.

“Not bad,” she says as she throws a punch that he dodges, but just barely. She moves again and he misses that attack too, swinging back, but his reflex is off and he stumbles forward, going to his knees.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Clint grunts in irritation as he picks himself up off the mat. Bobbi grins smugly.

“If you wanted to kill yourself, you would’ve done it already. Several times, according to what I know,” she says, lunging for him again. He jerks away, memories of his father springing to his mind and almost falls onto his hands at the movement. Bobbi immediately stops, drawing back and finding his gaze.

“Clint. You can’t defend yourself if you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” he retorts, not bothering to ask how she knows because he’s aware his body language has probably given him away easily. “And I know how to defend myself.” _My brother taught me_ , he thinks with a bit of a bitter twinge. His hearing aids are ringing, a tiny mechanical buzz, and he rubs the heel of his palm against his ear.

“You wanna take those out?” Bobbi asks after another moment of uncomfortable silence, and Clint snorts.

“What, you know sign language?”

“No,” Bobbi says a little impatiently, folding her arms. “But if you can move better without them, it’ll help you concentrate.”

Clint sighs, letting the air out of his body in a rush. “I want to keep them in. I feel better being able to hear what’s going on,” he admits, and Bobbi tilts her head with the same look that Clint thinks he might’ve imagined the night before.

“Okay,” she allows, crossing in front of him again. “Unfortunately, we don’t have bows here, but I know you’re strongest when you can shoot. And those reflexes can be used for other things.” She pauses, picking up a stick, throwing it across the room where it hits the wall sharply. “Remember: you can make anything a weapon.”

“Sure,” Clint says, looking down at his hands. _You can get it all back_. He raises his arms. “Show me, then.”

Bobbi steps forward and arranges his hands slowly, molding his fingers into tight balls and maneuvering his arms in an wide arc as she talks.

“Your hands can protect you. You can use them to protect you face, like this,” she says, guiding his limbs like he’s a marionette without control of his own body. “Always use your hands first. If you can’t use your hands, you can use other things.” She drops his fists and picks up another stick lying by her feet, holding it out. “Come on. Anything can be a weapon, right?”

Clint nods and takes a breath, and starts twirling the stick in his hands the way he’s seen Bobbi do, forcing himself to wield it in the same way he might work an arrow. Before he can think about what he’s doing, he’s spinning it effortlessly between his fingers, the stick slashing through the air before he twirls it high above his head, bringing it down hard onto the mat. Bobbi grins.

“Better,” she says, taking the stick from him, and he finds himself smiling back against his will.

 

***

 

After another week, he becomes more comfortable with his body as well as his skills; he refines what he already knows and learns how to be a better, faster fighter, and he starts to think that maybe, he _can_ actually take care of himself. She rewards him by finding a range in Long Island with some available openings for lessons, and it takes him picking up a bow for the first time in forever to remind him how much he’s missed it, how much a part of him archery really was, even if he’d only done it steadily during his two years with the circus.

The attendant apologizes for only having borrowed equipment that’s probably not up to standards but Clint doesn’t care; he’s never had a bow of his own before anyway, and what he’s using now is light years better than what Duquesne had initially trained him with. Muscle memory catches up to him effortlessly, the draw of the bow and the positions of his elbows aligning; he remembers in school how they learned once about animals adapting to a certain ways of living over time, usually because of traits that were innate to them at the time of their childhood.

Clint’s slightly rusty, his bad shoulder screaming in protest as he breaks the mold hardened by years of disuse, but he soon learns that whatever he’s picked up from his training hasn’t changed much -- and moreover, that the training he’s been doing with Bobbi has made him even more agile. She watches from behind as he deploys his arrows with ease and when Clint turns around, she nods in approval.

“Fury was right,” she muses. “You are good.”

Dinner that night is pizza, her treat at a small parlor in Hoboken, and between the food and the fact that he’s been able to shoot again, Clint feels like he’s finally comfortable enough to break the ice. It’s the longest he’s stayed with someone or has had someone stay with him since Barney, and when he realizes that, there’s a pain that spreads through his lungs, as if a piece of bread has gone down the wrong pipe.

And Bobbi’s still careful around him, which Clint doesn’t mind, because he doesn’t really want to get into any kind of relationship where he has to open up. She’s kind enough and tough enough when it matters, and keeps her distance and stops joking with him about the fact he needs to sleep with the light on. But she matches his wit and even his skill and after almost a month, he feels himself becoming stronger, both physically and maybe even a little mentally.

It doesn’t stop him from deciding to leave, though.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay?” Bobbi asks as she finishes packing a bag of non perishable food. He notes that she doesn’t ask him where he’s going or where he plans to go, and isn’t sure whether that’s because of a strange form of trust they’ve seemed to have formed with each other, or if it’s because she just doesn’t care. But he thinks that Bobbi might understand that much; she’s used to moving on, knows what it means to keep your cover, has experience being restless and wanting something more.

“Yeah,” he says, because he’s gotten pretty good at lying. “I will.” He likes Bobbi okay, but he also knows that he can’t stay here; the apartment is starting to feel too much like a home he never had and never asked for, and he doesn’t want to risk pushing that any further.

“Thanks again, for everything. Really.”

He takes his bag and walks out the door, and for the first time since the circus, he feels like maybe he’s found a bit of renewed hope.

 

***

 

Clint doesn’t actually _mean_ to end up in the bar, but, well, it’s the first place he sees when he leaves and, well, a drink or two probably wouldn’t hurt while he thought about his options. Bobbi had generously padded him with enough cash to get by, which Clint had initially felt bad about until Bobbi had rolled her eyes and practically forced the money into his pocket.

“If you ever see me again, you can pay me back. Let me help, Barton. Let _someone_ help, for gods sake.”

He orders a beer, and then another, and then another, gets caught up in his own thoughts and in watching the Yankees game on television, along with the raucous crowds of after-work patrons that crawl around him. By the time it’s finally hinted to him that he should leave the seat he’s warmed for the past six hours, he does so grudgingly, ignoring the suggestion that he should let the bartender call him a cab.

He’s not that drunk, at least, he doesn’t _feel_ that drunk, but when he steps outside, it still takes awhile for his senses to catch up to him and for the screams to reach his attention. Clint blinks in the streetlights and rubs a hand over his eyes, turning in the direction of the sound, rounding on a father arguing loudly with what Clint assumes has to be his son, given the tone of his voice.

“I _told_ you not to run away,” the father snarls, gripping the small boy roughly by the arm while the child lets out what Clint recognizes as an unmistakable whine of terrified pain. He’s walking before he realizes what he’s doing, coming up behind the man and barely allowing enough time to shout his arrival before he decks the stranger square in the jaw.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell!”

The man reels backwards, blood staining his teeth, and Clint feels his vision blur. “What the _fuck_ , dude? What’s your problem?”

“My problem?” Clint asks, grabbing the man. “ _My_ problem? Maybe I’m not the one with the problem.” He delivers another blow to the man’s face the way Bobbi’s taught him, fingers tight and knuckles firm.

“ _Don’t you hurt him again_ ,” he shouts, repeatedly lashing out with his fist. He vaguely registers another cry and somewhere inside of him there’s a voice screaming at him to stop, telling him he’s probably doing more harm than good. But he can’t seem to slow down, and the rage he’s felt simmering inside him boils over before he knows what to do with himself.

By the time a policeman arrives to pull them apart, the man can barely walk, and Clint is bloody and bruised with no fight left in him, and he also feels like he might be sick. He throws up in the back of the cop car as they’re driving to the police station and passes out on the dirty floor of the holding cell they shove him into, and when he dreams, he sees his father’s face.

 

***

 

“Barton. Clint Barton.”

Clint opens one swollen eye, moving his jaw slowly, and has a moment where he wonders why the rest of his body is in pain before he begins to vaguely remember what happened and where he is. He groans as he pushes himself up, his hands automatically coming up to touch his ears. Whatever aids Fury had given him all those years ago in the hospital were more than good, they had stayed intact and working even through his fight, and he knows his old ones surely wouldn’t have made it that far.

“You’re officially released,” says the officer, not waiting for Clint to respond as he gets up. There’s a loud whine as the cop pulls back the bars and Clint looks up to meet first the feet and then the face of someone he would recognize even if he were blinded ten times over. He squints a little more in the harsh overhead light, taking in the full beard and the brown hair and purple baseball cap, the low rim covering what Clint notices are small scars on his forehead.

“Barney?”

“Yeah,” says his brother in a voice gruffer than Clint remembers, moving with an assurance that seems almost otherworldly. “Come on, baby bro. I’m your ticket outta here.”

 

***

 

They end up in a shitty-looking diner on the west side of 59th Street, and Barney orders Clint water and cheese fries and a hamburger for himself, and Clint doesn’t bother to wonder where his brother has the money to front the meal, decides that he doesn’t care.

“Hangover food at its best,” Barney says sardonically, watching him attack the food with a raised eyebrow. “So this is what baby Barton has been up to since the circus, huh? Beating up random guys on the street and getting drunk in dive bars.”

Clint looks up, his mouth full of food, and there are _so many things_ he wants to say about where he’s been and what he’s done. But his brain can only focus on one train of thought, and he doesn’t regret that it’s what comes out first.

“You _left_ me.”

Barney looks annoyed, and that frustrates Clint even more.

“You left me,” he repeats, swallowing down a mouthful of water, feeling it slosh around in a stomach that’s still not quite right. “You left without even looking for me, you left me for dead and you didn’t even care. I’ve been…I’ve been scrounging around New York for however many years, working my ass off trying to just get by, while you’ve been living a life! You never even bothered to come back!”

Barney doesn’t respond, and Clint leans forward into his hands, his head pounding. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Barney sighs. “You’re wrong,” he says after a long beat and Clint looks up. “Don’t give me that look, Christ, Clint. I’ve been doing the same thing I was doing when I left the circus –- odd jobs, trying to get by, make money. I still _am_ doing those things. But I’m trying to be better about it.”

“What do you mean, trying to be better?” Clint asks a little suspiciously, as Barney takes an envelope from his bag and pushes it towards him.

“I can’t tell you the details. But I’m in with good people, now…well, people at least that will help me make a decent living.” Barney pauses, dropping his voice. “Anyway, that there’s eleven hundred dollars. It’s yours if you want it. Use the money to buy yourself some new clothes. Hell, buy yourself a fancy bow and arrow. A plane ticket to California. Just…I don’t know. Use it to get yourself a goddamn good life, okay, Clint?”

“And what if I don’t want to?” Clint asks, shoving the envelope back across the table as Barney barks out a laugh.

“God, you never change, do you? Not even when you’re broke and starving and sprung from the futzing drunk tank.” He shakes his head, throwing a few dollars onto the table as he gets up. “You’re a real stubborn son of a bitch.”

“Like you’re any better?” Clint asks rudely, mostly because he’s his brother, and because he knows what he can say in his presence. Barney rolls his eyes.

“Come on, you asshole. I’m staying in my benefactor’s place uptown, and you can spend the night with me. I’m not letting you sleep on the streets. Besides, you fucking stink.”

 

***

 

Barney brings him back to the most opulent looking penthouse Clint’s ever seen; it’s nicer than Bobbi’s by a mile and he almost questions it until he remembers what Barney had told him in the diner. He doesn’t really know what Barney means by the word _benefactor_ but doesn’t really want to find out, because the last few benefactors in his life had included a man who left him for dead.

“You want the couch?” Barney asks and Clint nods; he likes the feel of a bed but something about sleeping in one alone seems a little too off-putting. Barney leaves him to his own devices as he takes the bedroom and, Clint notices, makes himself pretty much at home by throwing his clothes and shoes around the room, in a way that makes Clint wonder if his brother ever felt any kind of hesitation or worry about feeling like he didn’t belong somewhere.

He washes up with borrowed items in the bathroom before stripping down to his boxers, being careful about where he puts his small pile of clothes, and falls asleep quicker than he expects given that he knows he’s spent most of the previous night passed out. It’s the cold that wakes him, the crippling, unrelenting freeze that claws with ice-covered nails at his chest and pulls a rope around his lungs, and he opens his mouth to scream but in his fight for breath, the only thing that comes out is a deadly silence.

Clint stumbles from the couch, picking himself up from his knees as he speed walks to the bedroom, though he finds himself stopping short when he opens the door and sees Barney’s lump under the mattress, his brother stirring in the dark. There’s a part of him that calms at the sight, because old habits die hard and it’s something of a comfort to know that for all his brashness and bravado, his brother also still had the same fears that he did in his childhood.

“Can’t sleep?” Barney asks roughly, his voice scraping over the words and Clint doesn’t have to wonder if he heard the door or not; he knows how his brother’s senses work because his work the same way. Clint shakes his head.

 _I had a nightmare. I can’t fucking sleep anymore, Barn. He’s gonna kill me. He’s gonna kill me and I won’t be able to hear him coming_.

Barney edges himself up by using his elbows and nods as Clint flicks on the overhead light, blinking a few times as he squints towards him.

“Come on, baby bro.”

Clint walks across the room, climbing in next to him in silence, and they sleep together that night like they did when they were kids, Barney slinging his arm around his waist as if they’re seven and twelve all over again, as if by being together like this, they can provide some sort of barricade against the world of adults who drank too much and yelled too much.

Barney doesn’t flinch when Clint wakes up again, grabbing at the blankets on the bed and knocking over a bedside lamp in the process. Even so, Clint’s not entirely surprised when he finally wakes up after falling back asleep to find that his brother is gone. If he was being honest, he hadn’t expected him to last more than a few hours, and as he downs the painkillers that have been left for him on the bedside table, he starts wondering where Barney could even _go_.

And almost as instantly as the thought enters his mind, Clint knows it doesn’t matter, because he knows that he won’t go looking for him. He doesn’t want any part of his brother’s life of crime, however rich he was making himself in the process, although, he realizes as he gets out of bed, he’s back to being not entirely sure _what_ he wants.

The pocketknife next to the clock catches his eye and Clint picks it up before he can stop himself, twirling it between his fingers before flicking it open. He can count on the fingers of one hand how many times it had honestly occurred him to just end it all; truth be told, he was too chicken for that and preferred to allow himself the pain of wallowing, because that at least helped him to feel human. He didn’t like feeling numb, he felt it too much already when he couldn’t hear properly, and drinking helped with that, he knew, taking the edge off enough for him to be temporarily pacified without completely letting himself fall into the void, a strange balance between control and disarray.

The cold blade of the knife is smooth against his skin, and making the first cut is easy enough as he picks at a scar from Duquesne’s attack that’s never fully disappeared. But something about seeing the blood bubble up across his skin makes him feel dizzy, and he shoves his head in his heads, letting the trickle of red bleed its way onto his face as he controls his breathing.

Clint gets up after five long minutes, slapping a bandage messily along the cut and finally allows himself to shower for the first time in over a day. He angles his body under the spray of the fancy appliance, bracing himself against the wall while allowing the water wash away the sweat of his nightmares, the rotting stench of the jail cell and the pain of the wound he’s inflicted on himself. The cold tile chills his skin and makes him think of nights on the streets, of cramped limbs and days spent in the icebox of a meat locker in the dead of winter, and he suddenly feels like he’s drowning, burdened by the very thing that is supposed to be helping him heal. He’s out of the tub without remembering how he got there in the first place, dripping and shivering in the solitude of the apartment as a draft raises goosebumps along his skin. Curling his naked body into the rug, he finds himself wishing for Bobbi, and he hates that he wishes for Bobbi, though he knows he wishes for Barney more.

 _I see you finally got your sorry ass together_ , and he can almost hear his brother’s voice behind him as he shuts down the thoughts paralyzing his mind. Psychological damage was a strange thing, and it was probably better for him that he never lasted in one place long enough to find a therapist that could sufficiently attempt to deal with all of his issues.

Clint raises his head and notices that Barney left out some clothes for him on the hamper, pants that are too small around the waist and a button down shirt that’s a size too big. He puts them on slowly, draping the fabric over his cut, not bothering to mind that the blood is still seeping through the grey cloth. He’d throw the damn shirt out of he needed to, if he couldn’t scrub it out before he left, because hell, Barney’s damn benefactor had a house bigger than Central Park and Clint couldn’t imagine he would miss one random shirt.

He heads to the kitchen and grabs a packet of instant coffee from the shelf, and it’s as he’s filling his cup with water from the automatic faucet that he catches sight of the small folded note on the counter. It’s sitting on top of a bag filled with the stash of money he had initially refused at the diner, and Clint puts down his mug, hesitating slightly before picking up the paper.

_Hey Clint,_

_I knew you wouldn’t accept this after last night, so I’m leaving it this way. If you don’t take it, it’s your call. Just know you’ve always been the better one. You don’t need the damn money to get by as much as you think. But I told you I’d always take care of you, and I’m not breaking that promise._

Clint swallows and clenches his fingers around the letter, feeling his eyes sting.

_It’s nice to know that the years don’t change you. You’re kind of lost, but you’re still as Clint Barton as Clint Barton ever was…mom’d be futzing proud. I love you, bro. Lemme know where you go when you leave. I may not look like I care, but I’ll always come back._

_P.S. – Something for you in the closet. I kept it just in case._

Clint lets the paper fall to the ground, brow furrowed as he moves towards a doorway in the front hall, stopping short when he opens it and sees the familiar spine of the book that’s been placed precariously a shelf filled with towels. He reaches for it, running his fingers along the letters, and sinks onto the ground as he flips open the cover to reveal the faded, messy scrawl on the inside flap.

_To: CLINT_

_From: Barney B._

_Merry Christmas. Hope you can find a wardrobe one day._

Clint stares at the inscription, letting his head fall forward and leaving the book open on his lap. Part of him wants to laugh out loud; it’s silly to think that he could have ever put hope into something like a childhood fantasy -- and besides, Clint’s pretty sure he hasn’t been a kid for years. Yet there’s a part of him that he knows still wishes he could believe stuff like this actually happened, that at some point, it was possible to find a magical world that would automatically give him a better life.

Because, Clint realizes as he runs a finger over the cut on his arm, he’s not finding that world by running, and, well, that’s what his whole life has been up until this point -- running away when everything was falling apart, no matter if those people were trying to help him or not. His parents. The orphanage. Barney. Duquesne and Fury and Bobbi. He feels the impact of each one as they pass through his brain, traveling down his limbs in pins and needles as though each piece is another part that’s sliding into place, completing the jigsaw that makes up what he knows is his fucked up past.

But then again, it was _his_ fucked up past. And maybe that alone, his own stupid life filled with missteps and bad choices and wrong turns, was enough to warrant living another day.

And maybe, he considers, thinking of Bobbi, he could figure himself out enough to one day repay the favor to someone else who needed it.

He closes the book and tucks it under his arm before making his way back to the living room; there’s a cordless phone sitting on the counter and Clint grabs it, searching through his discarded clothes until he comes away with a tattered card. He dials the number printed on the front and tries to stop his heart from beating out of his chest.

“It’s Clint Barton,” he says when the other end of the line finally connects. He takes a breath, wrapping his fingers around the phone, staring at the bag of money and clutching the book a little tighter. “Yeah, I know where I got this number.”

He waits another moment while the woman on the other end starts to speak again, and then squares his jaw.

“I’d like to request a meeting with Nick Fury, actually. I’m interested in joining SHIELD.” 

**Author's Note:**

> (For what it’s worth, the signs that Clint uses when he’s homeless are all real signs I’ve seen on the streets when walking around New York. It can truly be an unforgiving city for those who are lost, no matter how much money you have.)
> 
> My intent to write a Clint origin story was something I knew I wanted to do from the moment I started reading Hawkeye comics all that time ago, but due to many reasons, I never got it off the ground. I initially wrote a draft of this for the purpose of including it in this year's Hawkeye Bang, but the more the story evolved, the more it became clear to me that I didn't want to confine it to an exchange. (I also didn't intend to have this line up with feelings from Fraction's Hawkeye 21, but life happens.) I struggled with how far to go with some of the more triggering elements; ultimately, it became important for me to tell a story that I felt satisfied the details of Clint’s early life -- something which has so far only been explored via various comic canons. While I didn’t set out intending for this to be a personal exorcism of sorts, I also don’t regret the experience I went through while writing it. 
> 
> That being said, there are a majority of things in here that are specifically drawn from 616, but there are also deviations I took to fit my own personal take on the character’s backstory -- some probably more rooted in the MCU and some not; there’s also a bit of unintentional Fraction in here. Since the life of Clint Barton in the MCU remains largely unfounded at the time of writing this, I kind of took a strange liberty in molding what I could to fit the confines of the story that I wanted to tell. It's canon-compliant in most ways, but not so comic-specific that I can confine it to one media type and appease people, so make of that what you will. But I like to think it works. 
> 
> The result is not the happiest tale, or one that’s easy to emotionally process. But in the same way I needed this to exist for myself and for this character, I hope that it somehow can find its place in the world, and if you've made it this far, thank you for reading.


End file.
